Dear Kids,
      Dad and I just got home from Walmart, where we bought a 32" flat screen HDTV for watching conference at the cabin. Heck, we might install it permanently there, if I can find a way to run the wire from the antenna through the wall. (No cheap-looking cable across the floor and up the wall and out the window for us.) For now, we’ll probably just put the TV on the coffee table. At least we’ll have a signal! Last conference we couldn’t get anything very consistently. So we’re looking forward to Saturday and Sunday. I know several of you are coming for Sunday dinner, and that will be a lot of fun.
      Speaking of fun--we’ve had lots of it! Starting with Sharon and Lucy’s arrival last Friday morning, and Grandpa Allen’s birthday party Friday night, and the shower on Saturday. I might also add the Relief Society broadcast on Saturday night, which turned into a shopping trip for Nora, Sharon, Lucy, and myself, since our Stake Center was somehow cut out of the broadcast signal. We went to the nice dinner at 5:00 pm, and got to visit with a lot of the great ladies in our Stake, before the broadcast was going to start. When they announced that we were supposed to go to the other building on Volta Avenue, I think almost everybody made other plans for the rest of the evening. After all, you can always catch it later on the internet.
      One very cool thing about Grandpa’s birthday party: eight of our nine children were there, even though we were missing some of the spouses. Monica, I wish you could have been there, and Neil, too. It was very casual and very pleasant, with lots of good food. And who knows how many more birthdays Grandpa will have? Carly posted a cute picture of him on facebook, sitting in a chair, wearing a birthday hat.
      After my asthma attack last week, I somehow developed pneumonia. Walking pneumonia, they call it, because you can walk around. You just can’t breathe. I’ve had it a few times before, and you just have to outlast it, because the inhalers don’t do diddly for you. Dad set up a vaporizer in our bedroom, which helps a lot at night. He deserves the double-super-hero award for that. Also, I read on the internet, that cough drops help! They help dissolve the snot in your lungs. Who would’ve thought, but I can tell a difference. I think it’s the menthol in them.
      It still seems like summer, since it’s in the mid-eighties every day. It will always be summer, and hot.
      Lots of love, Mom